"Moonfall Over Fort Hill"

Moon slipping behind the treetops—where silence meets snow and the world forgets its noise…yet history, like the moon, always returns.

In the wee hours of the morning, the moon hung white against the black sky over Fort Hill—nearly full, with a scatter of distant stars, the brightest of which I imagine was Venus. That’s when the C.A.T.S. began their beeping. Incessant. Trucks grinding back and forth, noisily hauling away the inches of snow from my block. I was sure the businessmen would be pleased come daylight; less for them to shovel as they cleared the entrances to their shops from the street where the cars park. It always seems to benefit the drivers more than those of us who walk.

Because the freeze continues—cold as ice—the fallen snow has hardened into boulders. And yes, there are patches of ice just as frozen and twice as slippery, so make sure you’re wearing the right boots and not just sneakers when you head to the gym. It’s damn hazardous out there.

All that noise, which normally doesn’t bother me at all, woke me at 4:00 a.m. I got up and ran to the window to take it all in. Hearing one of those C.A.T.S. scraping the pavement felt like watching that scene in The Grapes of Wrath—Henry Fonda standing helpless as the monstrous tractors tear down homes and farms, dust and debris swirling, one lone man fighting to stay in Oklahoma while everyone else flees for California.

The scene outside my window had that same eerie, mysterious edge. The moon was dipping behind the treetops, beginning its descent, and the noise of the C.A.T.S. hadn’t stopped. The beeping was even louder than when I first woke.

I had planned to dive into Painted People first thing…but as you can see, I’m blogging instead of arguing with Abel and Zeno and Ahab. The moon is nearly gone now, like an old friend saying farewell--I’ll see you tomorrow—and for a moment you feel a little sad at its leaving. Then the beeping snaps you back to the fact that things just keep moving on.

So yes, I think I’ll go to the gym early today, get it out of the way, since I have so many other things planned…including finishing this article I stumbled upon about Sally Hemings and the side of slavery we rarely see in Hollywood—the stories of enslaved people who looked nearly white because of generations of forced interracial relationships.

And so the day begins.